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Religion: Islam: Qur'an & Tafsir

Start your research using the best resources recommended by the subject librarian for religious studies. It highlights the key indexes and reference works for the academic study of religion, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and more.

This new translation of the Qur'an is the result of decades of study by the translater, of the text, of the traditional Muslim authorities, and of work by western scholars. Special thought has been given to what the text would have meant to its original hearers and to the fact that the Qur'an was originally an oral work. Includes introductory notes.

The first translation to use contemporary English. However, the sequence was changed, beginning with "the more Biblical and poetic revelation" and ending with the "more topical chapters."1 Ziauddin Sardar, writing in The Guardian, notes that many Muslims hold this translation in low regard.(7)

Richard Bell's translation maintains the suras in their proper order, but rearranged the individual components according to a theory of "the three main periods of the composition of the Qur'an."(5). Bell's annotations and notes were not included in the 1937-39 edition, but are available in this 1991 edition.

Muhammad Asad, an Austrian convert to Islam (Leopold Weiss), brings a modernist perspective to his translation of the Qur'an, which at certain points diverges from traditional Muslim understandings of the text.(6)

Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation, first published between 1934-1937, is non-sectarian and apologetic work. It was produced as a reaction to Pickthall's translation, which he thought was excessively literal.(5) It provides brief summaries of each Sura and regularly includes homiletical amplifications not found in the text. (2, 3, 4, 5)

Muhammad Zafrullah Khan's translation reflects a strong Ahmadi viewpoint, which aims to establish the legitimacy of Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet. As such, it should be used primarily as a source for studying the Ahmadi movement.(1)

Reference Works

"...an encyclopedic dictionary of qur'anic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history, and exegesis extended with essays on the most important themes and subjects within qur'anic studies."

Fully revised and updated, the second edition of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an offers an ideal resource for anyone who wishes to read and understand the Qur'?n as a text and as a vital component of Muslim life.